Dobbin and chips?

The photo above shows the M.V Shetland Trader - a bulk freighter that plies its trade on the River Thames past Erith on an almost daily basis. You may have seen photos of the ship featured on the Maggot Sandwich in the past. I took the photo above recently whilst the Shetland Trader was moored on Erith Pier. You can see a member of the crew engaged in some painting and maintenance duties - not much fun when the weather is currently so cold and windy.

You may recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about the level of unpaid crossing fees that have already built up since the Dartford QEII Bridge and tunnel converted from physically collecting tolls from motorists via a series of toll booths, to a new ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) technology, whereby a high definition camera will record passing number plates, compare them to a database and charge the owner of the vehicle accordingly. This week the News Shopper are reporting that Bexley Police have begun a campaign to educate local residents about number plate theft. On Thursday they visited a number of locations around the Borough, including B and Q in Lower Belvedere, Harrow Manor Way in Thamesmead, and the BP Connect garage in Northumberland Heath. The Police teams gave away anti – tamper number plate screws free to visitors. Some crooks physically steal number plates so that they can evade things like the London congestion charge and the Dartford crossing toll. This is a crude, but very effective form of identity theft. Other crooks look out for vehicles that closely resemble their own, and make a note of the number plates. They then get copies of the plates made up – plate blanks and lettering are easy to come by if you know where to look – I have even seen whole number plate making “turnkey” systems for sale on EBay, albeit not in the UK. This is a major issue – hundreds of false plates are in circulation, and the onus is on the legitimate owner to prove identity theft, rather than the other way around. Often many people don’t realise their plates have been duplicated until they get a letter in the post accompanied by a fine for non – payment of charges. I foresee this becoming an increasingly serious issue, and it will not be long before the popular press pick up on the story. It will only take a celebrity or senior politician to get sent a fine or summons for prosecution due to their vehicle ID having been hijacked before the tabloid press will be all over the story.

There have already been some consequences regarding the changes in the train services on the North Kent Line. Apart from the lack of trains into Charing Cross, the planners at the Docklands Light Railway have decided to increase the number of DLR trains outside of rush hours on the Woolwich Arsenal to Canning Town branch. They are effectively doubling the number of trains on off – peak times on the Bank to Lewisham via Greenwich line, so that travellers should not have to wait more than five minutes for a train at any time. This can only be a good thing; the downside to all of this is that DLR staff are likely to go on strike from the 28th January for two days – I don't fully understand their complaints, but it seems to me that the withdrawal of labour is a fairly drastic move, and usually means that communications between the parties in dispute has failed. For many hard pressed commuters, it is very bad news, myself included, as I spend a great deal of time working in Canary Wharf, as do thousands of other people, all of whom will be inconvenienced by the action. Personally since the trains are all computer controlled, I don't see why that don't just run without their normal supervisor, who seems to be not much more than a glorified ticket inspector anyway. I have more trust in the computer to operate the train than I do in a human. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

You may have read in the popular press that certain car insurance companies are refusing to insure certain models of vehicle, the most widely known model being the latest Range Rover. The reason they cite is that crooks have cracked the digital keyless entry system on the upmarket off – roaders, and crooks can just walk up to the cars and drive away – the hack involves a device that mimics the electronic key fob, not only unlocking the doors, disabling the alarm and the immobiliser, and even starting the engine. I understand that Range Rover are currently investigating, and it is said that a recall of certain affected models for a firmware upgrade on their security systems is imminent. This is a bad state of affairs, but it would seem to be limited to a small number of vehicles from a specific car maker. Things are possibly going to get a whole lot worse though.  American security analyst Corey Thuen has discovered a state of affairs that could make the Range Rover security vulnerability look like small change. You may be aware that a number of UK insurance companies offer reduced premiums to drivers who have telematics “Black box” devices installed. Black box insurance works when your car is fitted with a small 'black box' device, about the size of a smartphone, which records speed, distance travelled and the time of day or night that you are on the road. The device also assesses your driving style by monitoring braking and cornering. It will also record the types of road on which you typically travel, and the times of day and night you tend to drive, to build up a comprehensive profile of you as a driver.  With a device fitted to your car you can access a website to find out how you are performing in each category. This will show you if you need to make any changes to your driving style, and will provide tips on how you can improve your driver score and bring down the cost of your insurance. As a rule of thumb it is assumed that driving fewer miles on less dangerous roads, while also limiting night time driving, will result in lower premiums. Policies linked to black box recorders charge premiums on a monthly basis, which means the insurer can adjust them swiftly to reward better driving (and punish those who show themselves to be a risky proposition). Aside from privacy concerns (personally I find the concept of being monitored via satellite repugnant, but I know many do not share my worries). The telematic devices may suit younger drivers – indeed I understand that some insurance companies will only issue policies to newly qualified drivers if they have a “black box” installed – at the driver's expense. In the USA there are over two million telematic monitoring units installed on vehicles, and it is likely that in the next few years they become widely spread all over the world. The problem is that the devices currently in use are extremely vulnerable to malicious interference. Corey Thuen said  “The firmware running on the black box is minimal and insecure. It does no validation or signing of firmware updates, no secure boot, no cellular authentication, no secure communications or encryption, no data execution prevention or attack mitigation technologies… basically it uses no security technologies whatsoever.” A skilled attacker could almost certainly compromise such telematics black boxes to gain remote control of a vehicle, or even an entire fleet of vehicles. Once compromised, the consequences range from privacy data loss to life and limb; also, there is the attack vector of progressive backend infrastructure. If those systems are compromised, an attacker would have control over the devices that make it out to the field. In simple terms, we have seen that cars can be hacked and we have seen that mobile cellular communications can be hacked.” Privacy of data within cars is also a growing concern, one highlighted by Thuen’s research. BMW this week said it had repeatedly been asked by technology companies and advertisers to hand over the data their cars generated, but it has refused to give in to those requests. Thuen said it would be possible to intercept data passed between the black boxes and the insurance providers’ servers, likely including location and performance information, as they do nothing to encrypt or otherwise protect the information they collect. From my research, unless the telematics companies and to a lesser extent the car manufacturers take data integrity and security more seriously, it is only a matter of time before there are disastrous consequences. I predict that hackers will compromise whole fleets of vehicles, demanding cash ransoms to release vehicles from their control, in a very similar method to the current spate of “ransomware” that has affected many PC’s – a remote hacker encrypts a users’ files, then demands a fee to release the encryption key. I don't see any difference between a desktop or laptop PC and a car – indeed modern cars have as much if not more processing power than a home PC, so the analogy is sound.

My observations last week in respect of the changes made to the Southeastern Trains service into London on the North Kent Line have inspired a response from regular Maggot Sandwich reader Paul Thomas, who writes:- "Interested in your comments on the changes to the train services along the Greenwich line and your comments regarding the platform alterations. When the Thameslink Programme(as the alterations caused by the works at London Bridge are called) was first mooted it was envisaged that the Greenwich Line would lose many services during the 4 year building programme. This has not happened to the extent that was originally envisaged, although the fact that trains from Erith run exclusively to Cannon Street is a pain for me personally as I used an early morning Charing Cross train. Getting to Cannon Street after work at night is also an inconvenience, but there really was no alternative to severing the link that allows Greenwich Line trains to cross the tracks as a new dive under is being created in the space the cross over occupied. These new lines will help the movement of trains and ease conflict of movement that currently cause delays on the approach to London Bridge. The platform extensions were done at the time they were simply because the engineers were available to do them at that point. The UK has a chronic shortage of civil engineers and the work has to be planned many years in advance. Network rail is already planning projects for the period 2019-2024, and seeking requests from rail companies, local councils and Government for infrastructure enhancements for 2025-2030. Crossrail is also using many engineers, as are many other civil engineering projects such as the alterations to the Dartford Crossing. The longer platforms were generally expected to accept 12 car trains from 2018/19 when The Thameslink Programme is complete. Once all these new works are complete and 12 car trains introduced and Crossrail starts from Abbey Wood, travelling along the Greenwich line and reaching Central London will be much easier and smoother. With regard to Woolwich Dockyard Station; The first carriage of the train cannot be inside the Tunnel if selected door opening is to be used as the driver needs to see the on-platform cameras for safety reasons. It was closed during the Olympics as the special timetable run during the events meant that in order to run the extra trains more capacity was needed and by not stopping at this much underused station precious minutes were saved. Hope this info helps a bit". Very interesting insight - and thanks very much for sharing it with everyone. Much appreciated. If anyone else has information that you feel others might find of interest, please get in touch with me - you will get full credit, or can be anonymous as you so wish.

I have written on several occasions in the past about the situation in respect of unwanted ponies and horses that seem to about around Erith and Thamesmead (in fact the problem exists in many parts of the country). The problem is that there is a glut of animals which has in turn depressed the market to the point where they are now practically worthless. Only on Monday this week a foal was discovered in a water and mud – filled ditch in St. Thomas Road, Lower Belvedere. Despite the best efforts of the Fire Brigade, the foal died, most probably from Hypothermia. It is thought that the animal had probably fallen into the ditch the night before, and had spent all night in sub – zero temperatures. It was only when a passer – by noticed the foal in the morning that anything was done – albeit too late. The problem is that as the animals have no monetary value, their owners have little incentive to care for them. Some economists have suggested that if horse meat was more widely eaten in the UK, the large number of unwanted ponies and horses would have a monetary value as food; this ironically would ensure that many of the beasts would be better cared for. Personally I have no problems with eating horse – it tastes not dissimilar to steak, and is very low in saturated fat – what do you think – would you be averse to a portion of Dobbin and chips? Feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Guest contributor Dana Whiffen has written a very engaging piece on a band with local connections that teetered on the brink of major league stardom in the 1970’s. "Remember “Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman? John Speedy Keen was a friend and driver for Pete Townshend of The Who, Pete had recognised his songwriting skills and even included his “Armenia City in the Sky” on The Who Sell Out Album. Such was Pete Townshend’s admiration for Speedy’s song writing that he brought together with Keen two other musicians Andy Newman and Jimmy MCCulloch at the end of 1968 and they became known as Thunderclap Newman. They went into the studios in January 1969 with Speedy Keen on Vocals, guitar and drums, Andy Newman on piano and Jimmy McCulloch on lead guitar and Pete himself playing bass guitar and they recorded what was to become an iconic song titled “Something in the Air”.  It went to number one in the UK single charts holding off both Elvis and The Beatles from the top spot where it stayed for 3 weeks. Something in the Air was originally written for The Magic Christian film and by the end of 1969 it had sold 1 million copies being awarded a gold disc and was to later be used on soundtracks for The Strawberry Statement and Easy Rider CD deluxe edition and later in 2000 used in the film Almost Famous and in 2008 in an episode of My name is Earl and it continued to earn Speedy Keen a lot of money from royalties. Following on from the records huge success was the demand to see the band live, in order to perform they needed to add additional members so in the second half of 1969 they were joined by Jim Avery on Bass Guitar and Jimmy’s elder brother Jack McCullock on drums and they undertook a 26 tour date of the UK including playing THE BLACK PRINCE in Bexley Kent in a concert for Erith College Rag week. Due to Pete Townshend working on the next Who album “Tommy”, both Thunderclap Newman’s  “Hollywood Dream” their Townshend produced album and follow up single “Accidents”  were both delayed. This meant that the band lost important ground in a competitive music market and they failed to capitalise on the success of “Something in the Air” and by the time they were released , both failed to make their mark on the charts with “Accidents” only making number 44 and the album only 163 out of the Billboard top 200 chart. Speedy’s song writing talent was evident but he lacked the will to tour and upset his other band mates but either turning up late for rehearsals or not at all, because of this after their first UK tour both Jack McCulloch and Jim Avery left the band and they were replaced by Australians Ronnie Peel (bass) and Roger Felice (drums). They went onto to appear on TV programmes “How late is it” Top of the Pops” and “Beat Club” in Germany, and they toured the UK again in March 1971 and went on to tour Scotland  in March and early April 1971 again supporting Deep Purple on the UK  dates as well as in both tours of Holland and Scandinavia. Friction in the band mainly caused by Speedy’s low work rate and lack of motivation especially caused problems between him and Andy and reached an all time low and on returning to the UK in mid April they split up, just prior to being part of a 12 week package USA tour with Marsha Hunt and The Who, missing out on a chance to break into the USA market. Jimmy McCulloch had been recognised for his superb guitar playing and he went on to play with many bands including John Mayall, Stone the Crows and Paul McCartney’s Wings before his premature death at the age of 26 in 1979. Andy Newman went on to record a solo album titled “Rainbow” and also play on Roger Ruskin Spear’s (formerly of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) first solo album as well as touring with him. In 1973 Speedy released a solo album titled “Previous Convictions” with included Jimmy McCulloch and Roger Felice on some tracks, he also released another album in 1975 titled “Y’know wot I mean” but neither had much impact on the charts. Discouraged he tried his hand at production working on punk band “Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers first album LAMF in 1977 and also on Motorhead’s first album before quitting the music industry; he died at the age of 56 in 2002. With more recent increasing interest in Thunderclap Newman’s music,  In February 2010 Andy Newman resurrected Thunderclap Newman with new members Tony Stubbings on bass guitar, Nick Johnson on lead guitar, former Big Country drummer Mark Brzezicki and Pete Townshend’s nephew Josh Townshend on guitar and vocals, they went on to support the Big Country tour of the UK in 2011 releasing a CD titled “Beyond Hollywood”. Both former members Jack McCulloch and Jim Avery are still in touch with Andy Newman today". A fascinating story – thanks to Dana for writing such an interesting piece.

I noticed something on my way to Erith Station earlier in the week. A few years ago, many cars and people carriers would have stickers, usually in their back window with announcements like “Baby on Board” and “Show Dogs in Transit”. I gather the reason for this was that in the event of a serious accident, the emergency services would know to look for an occupant on the rear seat or parcel area of the vehicle. It did strike me that to have such a sticker in one’s car would be rather self – serving and self-important. I was not the only person to form this opinion; satirical magazine Viz printed spoof stickers reading “Dog’s Eggs in Transit”. Ahem. I notice that nowadays these stickers seem to have entirely disappeared. I don't know if others have observed the same issue?

Bexley Neighbourhood Watch Association have just published the following announcement that may be of interest to local readers. Shopwatch is a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, originally set up as a trial in Bexley Village, it is works via an email loop (sharing of information) between Neighbourhood Watch, the shops registered and their local police team. We heard of various stories of distraction theft even from charity shops in the Village and were also aware that shops either end of Bexley Village were unaware of what was happening. Under this scheme "ShopWatch" all registered shops which is most of them were kept informed of crime trends and also let us know of any incidents so that all information could be shared and this saw a significant fall in shop crime in the Village. Because of its success and the eagerness of other Police Teams to see this rolled out in his areas/wards shops we have since worked with them to increase membership to a wider area in different towns in the Borough. We have now enrolled most shops in The Oval Parade Sidcup, Blackfen, Wellington and Blendon Parades, Mayplace Road East, Crayford Town Centre, Northumberland Heath-Erith and Welling with membership now well over 250 shops, we plan to continue to include other shopping parades throughout the Borough in 2015. Our most recent ShopWatch alert has seen information passed on about a shoplifter with a full description of person. ShopWatch is our latest non-residential schemes, which we run in addition to HoundWatch (Dog Walkers registered members walking their dogs report suspicious people etc) PlotWatch (fighting against allotment crime), FaithWatch (combating crime in and around places of worship), and finally HorseWatch for Stables (here they have had theft of saddles etc). If you would like to become a member of any of the schemes mentioned or alternatively you would like to set up a Watch in your road/area/block please contact us at the following;-

Telephone: 0208 284 5537
Email: bexwatch-office@btconnect.com

The end video this week is a sequel to the piece of historical video that I featured a while back that was compiled by local history enthusiast Martin Barnes. It shows all sorts of activities centred in and around Bexleyheath Broadway over the last hundred years - do give it a watch and let me know what you think - leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Rod - a true Halloween story.

The photo above shows the motor vessel the "Shetland Trader" moored on Erith Pier, that I took earlier this week. Click on the photo for a larger view. It is a bulk carrier which is being used to transport the spoil dug out of the ground from the Crossrail project tunnelling work. I hope to be able to say quite a bit more about the small fleet of ships that are carrying out this work, and mooring regularly on Erith Pier within the next week or two; watch this space.

As many Maggot Sandwich readers will be aware, Bexley Council seems to delight in making decisions which frustrate and annoy its’ residents. This perverse behaviour is especially mystifying when one considers that the local council elections are less than a year away, and people have long memories. Malcolm Knight of the excellent “Bexley is Bonkers” website is without doubt the best documenter of this. In addition, it seems that every time a bewildering or illogical decision is made by the council, it affects the Northern part of the borough – Lower Belvedere, Erith and Slade Green, for example. My pet theory behind this is that the people who run the council tend to live in the more prosperous centre or south – in places like Bexleyheath, Sidcup and Old Bexley. They tend to give the impression that they don’t give a stuff as to what happens in the North of Bexley Borough, as long as it does not happen on their doorsteps. A prime example of this behaviour is the decision the council have made to award the contract to manage the forthcoming new Howbury Centre development in Slade Green, not to the existing volunteer group, which has successfully and popularly run the existing centre for the last few years, but to an external organisation called Eco Communities, which is based in Lewisham. Slade Green has been allocated £8.5 million in redevelopment money; a chunk of this will be going into the new Howbury Centre building itself. It begs the question; why would you exclude a local group, which by all accounts has been doing a sterling job running the existing centre, and choose a new, untried organisation from out of the Borough? Now it well may be that there are good reasons for this, but the council’s lack of transparency means the information is not released into the public domain – and thus conjecture starts. Local resident Claire Price wrote the following on the Bexley Times website:- “The Howbury Centre is a community facility, offering a wide range of activities, groups and support to the local community. This means the people who live and work in the area. These are the people who should be running the centre- the people who know the community because they are part of it, who know the issues and needs because they are their issues and needs, and they see and talk to the local people every single day. Taking this out of Slade Green will be taking away the voice of the people who use these facilities. The petition shows what Slade Green wants for its future. A local group like Howbury Friends can meet the needs much more readily than a group which has no link to the area. Do the right thing. Give the residents and visitors what they want, what they need, and what they deserve”. I could not have put it better myself. I personally have already signed the petition, though I suspect in its’ usual manner, Bexley Council will steamroller their decision through however much local opposition there is. It is a classic “Do as we say, not as we do”. £8.5 million may not be a large sum of money by Bexley Council budgeting standards, but it is a huge boost to a deprived area like Slade Green, and if invested wisely can create long term jobs and resources for a lot of people who could really do with the help. Bringing an unknown outside organisation in to spend this money is worrying for many who care about the area – they don’t know local conditions or requirements, and may well try and use a “one size fits all” approach, which is unlikely to succeed. The vibes coming from Bexley Council make it sound very much like a done deal I am afraid. Many local people are campaigning to keep control of the centre; one such person is Carol, who sent me the following piece for publication. These are her own words:- "Ten years ago Slade Green was identified as a 'Hot Spot' under Bexley Councils Areas of Opportunities Programme. ASB and criminal damage being the main concerns, young people being the main identified culprits. An area of high deprivation, low incomes, a 'no go' area, isolated residents, fear of crime and low educational achievement. Just some of the problems the area faced, from the outside, this was the view of many. From the inside, a close knit community who were working hard to improve their community, not least of these residents, the groups who work from the Howbury Centre. Howbury Tumblers a carer and toddler group who provide support to parents and children and Howbury Friends who support everyone - not just those in Slade Green. They are involved in their community, they are volunteers who work tirelessly 6 days a week to provide for the needs of their community. They talk to their community and provide activities based on what their community tell them they need. They provide childcare, so kids are no longer left to see to themselves after school. they provide activities for teens, stopping most of the ASB and damage, they provide for older residents with activities and keep fit, they provide for families and it keeps going. They support the local schools by running literacy and numeracy classes, by providing work experience placements for local kids. They work in partnership with an amazing number of different organisations including Bexley Council. All of this and more they do with very little money, most of the money they spend goes on rent to the owner of the building. They raise it through funding applications to a variety of funders including Children in Need, by raising money themselves and all so they can give a deprived community with little money what it needs. So they can improve their community for all residents, improve their life chances and because they care. The Big Society has been modelled on Slade Green, they are the big society, they volunteer with no expectation of monetary reward and in any other council area would be celebrated. But they are Slade Green and it is in Bexley, there is no justice if the new facility is given to an outside organisation. These groups have worked hard over the last 9 years to fill the gaps in provision that the area suffers, they have succeeded in bringing this community together and they stand up and speak for their community. They have saved Bexley Council thousands of pounds by dealing with problems that would otherwise escalate and impact on council budgets. Their community trusts them, their users trust them, other groups trust them, Bexley Council? make your own mind up. If you would like to support this community sign their petition at  http://democracy.bexley.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=12 and please pass on, Thank You".

Talking of done deals. I found it amusing to read a report in the News Shopper that  both Greenwich and Bexley councils have given the go – ahead for the construction of the new Crossrail station terminus at Abbey Wood. This is a bit of a surprise, as building work has been under way at the site for ages! Talk about the horse before the cart! Not only has work to build the temporary new station building begun, but the heavy engineering to create the tunnel, and the lines for where the tunnel emerges from underground just to the East of Plumstead station have been well under way for the last couple of years. The thought that either Bexley or Greenwich councils could have blocked the construction of the South Eastern end of the largest mass transit project in Europe is laughable in the extreme. It smacks of “box ticking” by those responsible. The fact that Bexley has made some rather half - hearted objections to the platform canopy design, complaining that it is too small. The whole Crossrail project is an engineering feat that comes close to rivalling some of the ambitious Victorian projects, and should make access to West London from our local area much easier. I look forward to being able to go to Southall for a curry and get back in less than a couple of hours.

Although what I do for a living has some quite technical aspects, one of the skills I have developed over the years is to be able to take quite an advanced technical idea and translate it for anyone to be able to understand. I thought I was pretty good at this, but having watched the video below, I am in awe of this chap. He takes a couple of quite esoteric concepts behind how the World Wide Web works, and explains them in very straightforward language. In this short video he explains what cross site scripting is, and how it is very useful when using interactive websites like Gmail and FaceBook, but also illustrates how it can be used to carry out all sorts of nasty things like stealing people's account details and passwords from their online bank, if the web page is not properly constructed to prevent it. Trust me, it is fascinating and easy to understand, even if you have little or no knowledge of how a website works.

The News Shopper have reported this week that Crayford pub The One Bell has had a plaque installed outside to commemorate the fact that back on the 21^st June 1844, the pub was the location of the founding of the Chartist movement. The chartists were a group of men (no women’s suffrage back then) who wanted electoral rights for the working classes. The central tenets of the Chartist movement were:- 1) a vote for every man over the age of 21 who was of sound mind and not undergoing punishment for a crime. 2) All ballots to be held in secret. 3) No requirement to be a property holder for members of Parliament, thus enabling rich or poor to stand for election equally. 4) MP’s to receive a living wage – meaning rich or poor could represent a constituency. 5) Equal constituency sizes – enabling the same amount of representation for the same number of electors. 6) Annually elected parliaments – the theory being that a rich man might be able to win an election through bribery if elections were held every five or seven years, but if it was held every year, even those with the deepest pockets could not keep paying bribes to throw the result in their favour. Chartists were pioneers of social justice and equal rights for all; they were also opposed to any form of state sponsored religion. In many ways their aims were predecessors of the Labour movement, though Chartists and their policies were widely opposed by the ruling classes – in some cases leading chartist campaigners were arrested for treason after organising strikes and marches against what they saw as unfair treatment by big business owners and the government. The Chartist movement lost a lot of credibility in 1848 when leaders of the Chartist movement organised a petition to hand in to Parliament urging them to change electoral laws to bring in changes to comply with the six points on their charter. The problem was, they had said that they had gained over five million signatures, when in fact they had actually only got around a million. If this was not a big enough dent in their image, when the petition was examined, it was found that a large proportion of the signatures were forged. Names like “Queen Victoria” and “Mister Punch” cropped up with regularity. Shortly thereafter the group fizzled out. In the end, they achieved none of their original aims; they did however, lay much of the groundwork for the later trade union movement.

The photo above was kindly loaned by local photographer John King - it was taken in August 1971, and shows the place when it was still a busy centre of law enforcement. Nowadays it is a shoddy and not very nice flat conversion - I think an opportunity was missed; it could have been converted into upmarket riverside apartments when it ceased to be a Police station back in 1996. Instead it was left empty for a couple of years before being rather shoddily converted into some very ordinary flats. You can see John's Flickr photo stream here.

Bexley Council have sneaked out a decision very much on the quiet; it had certainly passed under my own radar; it was only the vigilance of one of my occasional informants that brought the situation to light.  On the 15^th October, the council met to discuss “potential service adjustments”. One of the changes they considered was to “provide a shared local studies and archives service run out of Bromley Central Library as part of the shared service library offer across the two boroughs”. What this in effect would mean is the closure of the local studies and archive centre at Bexleyheath Library, and to transfer it to Bromley Library. Bexley Council have a very poor record when it comes to preserving local history resources. When Erith Library moved from the excellent Andrew Carnegie donated building in Walnut Tree Road into the new (and to my mind soulless) building in Erith High Street, the excellent Erith Museum – which had existed for years on the upper floor of the old building, was relegated to a couple of glass display cabinets in the new library – and now even those have gone. No trace remains of the museum dedicated to the local area, despite many protests. I fear that the same will happen if Bexley local studies is forcibly relocated to Bromley Library. Many of the people who use the local history archive at Bexleyheath library would find it very difficult to travel to Bromley – they are often elderly and have to rely on public transport. Travel to Bromley can be time consuming, and to be honest I doubt much effort would be made by Bromley to accommodate Bexley Library, or indeed its’ residents, as they don’t pay council tax in Bromley, and there would be little or no incentive for them to provide much in the way of service. I predict if the archive moves, it will actually be the end of it in all practical senses. Bexley Historical Society is organising a campaign to save Bexleyheath local studies and archive centre. At this point the final decision on the fate of the centre has not been made; Bexley Council will make the final decision in March 2014. You can read more about the situation, and find out what you can do to make you views known to those responsible by visiting the Bexley Historical Society website here. 

The local (and to some extent, the national) press have gone into a bit of a feeding frenzy in relation to arachnids and insects over the last couple of weeks; there have been over wrought stories about the “plague of foreign killer spiders” and other hysterical claims. It turns out that the so called “killer” spiders are false widows, and the false widow is not a newcomer to these shores as has been variously claimed; the spider was first reported in the UK over a hundred years ago. I also have doubts over some of the claims from people that have been bitten by the false widow – limbs being hours away from amputation and other dire symptoms are more likely as the result of venom allergy, or a secondary infection. The false widow bite is similar in damage to that of a common wasp – painful, but not normally life changing. Of course, someone with an allergy can be killed by a single sting or bite if their reaction is severe enough, but the vast majority of people have no such adverse reaction. I feel that the whole story has been blown out of proportion, and sensationalised. As the cold winter weather sets in, and the creepy crawlies die off, the press will have to move onto other subjects, and in my opinion, not before time. 

For some reason the launch of the latest version of Apple’s OS X 10.9 "Mavericks" operating system gets a lot more press coverage than the recent release of Windows 8.1. I get the feeling that the underlying cause of this is that a majority of journalists use Apple products and have an unconscious bias towards them. Whatever the cause, there has been a degree of hype over the release this week of OS X 10.9 “Mavericks”. I downloaded it on the day of release, half expecting problems as millions of other Mac owners would be doing the same thing. My fears were unfounded – the 5.29Gb installation file downloaded smoothly and quickly. The installation was painless, and all of my existing files and settings were preserved (and yes, I do have a full external backup in case of problems). Once I was up and running with the new operating system, things started getting more disappointing. Apple claim that there are over two hundred changes and improvements in Mavericks. I have found it very hard to find many of them – the whole experience is very similar to the older OS version. Apple are once again trying to encourage their users to “go cloud” and store their data on Apple’s own servers – not something I use, as Apple and online storage have a long and not very glorious history. Apple have revised the OS to make cloud storage more user friendly and reliable; unfortunately for them, Google have long ago captured the home market for cloud storage. One other new function built into Mavericks is Apple’s own maps service – something that has been available on the iPad and iPhone for some time. There was controversy when Maps was launched, as it was found to be inaccurate and misleading. I thought that all of this time later, Apple would have learned from their mistakes, and would have polished Map for the iMac to create a reliable solution. Wrong. Apple Map is dreadful. As a test I input the post code for Pewty Acres, only to discover that according to Apple, it was two blocks to the West of its’ actual location. On top of this, my local fish and chip shop was nearly a mile from where it really is; and to add insult to injury, Woolworths was still showing in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. Very poor. Google Maps is light years ahead in accuracy and functionality – even now Apple Maps lacks a “street view” option – something of a unique selling point for Google. All in all, OS X Mavericks feels like a point upgrade, rather than a completely new version of OS X. Had I paid money for it, I would feel somewhat deflated by the experience, which (for me at least) offers very little that I did not have before. Apple’s decision to offer Mavericks for free to all Apple owners who have machines built in 2007 or later means that I cannot really nit pick with it. Overall OS X remains a stable, reliable and easy to use platform; it is just getting a bit staid and boring.

Now that we are upon Halloween, I have a story to tell you. I have never told this in public before. Unlike most Halloween horror stories, this one is absolutely true and totally verifiable. The photo above was taken by me in the summer of 1992. It shows the Radio Caroline ship, the Ross Revenge, moored in the old Dover Western Commercial Dock - click on the photo for a larger view. The ship had broken its' anchor chain during a heavy storm some months earlier and had drifted onto the Goodwin Sands, from where she was only the second ship in history to be successfully salvaged. She was taken to Dover, where a crew of Caroline staff and a lot of volunteers attempted to restore the ship after being continuously at sea for around nine years. She was cosmetically rough, but basically sound. I was still working for Radio Caroline at the time, and spent much of my time living on board. One gloriously sunny day, a magnificent seventy foot ocean going yacht sailed into the dock and moored, stern in, behind the Ross Revenge (to the right of the photo). The yacht was skippered by a young and very good looking chap who introduced himself as Rod. We invited him on board the Ross Revenge, and gave him a guided tour of the ship, compete with studios, transmitter room and the mess. Over the next week or so, we saw a lot of Rod; he had just sailed up from the Falkland Islands, where he had been chartering for a group from the National Geographic, making a documentary on the penguin population of the islands - he showed us some photos from the expedition, and they were very impressive. Opposite the dock was a local pub, used by the sailors and dock workers. The Caroline crew were regulars - the landlord was a big fan, and would invariably put "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond on the Karaoke, then sing the track - unfortunately he could not hold a tune in a bucket, and the end result was painful. The upside was we got lots of free drinks, and there were lock - ins several times a week. I recall several occasions when we returned to the ship as the sun rose over the ships' antenna masts, and on one particularly memorable occasion having the rather refreshed station manager in a wheelbarrow to get him back on board and into his bunk. Rod joined in with all this with vigour. We found out he was an ex army officer who had inherited a substantial amount of money upon the death of his parents, and he was making a living, travelling the world and hiring out his yacht for all sorts of adventures. This was nothing unusual for Radio Caroline - we tended to attract colourful and larger than life characters, and Rod was just the latest in a long line of individualists. One Sunday evening, we returned from the pub at about 11pm; Rod had promised to treat us to a traditional Sunday Roast, complete with all of the trimmings - he had spend hours preparing it, and we were all licking our lips in anticipation. We all followed him down the steps into the luxuriously appointed main cabin on his yacht - the vessel was obviously worth a fortune, but it was a seaworthy, working ship, not a rich playboy's toy. True to his word, Rod excelled himself, producing a very large and succulent joint of medium rare roast beef, which he carefully worked on with a large and very sharp carving knife, whilst we helped ourselves to roast potatoes, cabbage, shallots, carrots and home made gravy. The meal was a great success, and a really great shared memory of our time moored in Dover. The next day Rod popped over for a cup of coffee and a chat. He said he had plans to sail down to Gibraltar for a fashion photo shoot - the yacht was to be the backdrop. He asked me and a couple of the other Caroline crew if we would like a working holiday to help him crew the yacht on its' passage. There would be no pay as such, but he would buy each of us a return air flight. Myself and one other (who shall remain nameless, as he's reading this now) seriously considered it, but for various reasons had to regretfully decline. He said "no hard feelings - see you around". The next day his yacht was gone - he had left on the early morning tide. We were all a bit sad to see Rod go - he fitted in well with the Caroline crowd - we were all a bit eccentric and most definitely ploughed our own furrow. I recall a couple of days later, sitting in the Ross Revenge mess room eating my lunch (a cold roast beef, mustard and onion salad sandwich made from the leftovers of Sunday dinner, which Rod had generously given us) and watching the BBC lunchtime news. The headline story was a feature on how the Royal Navy had stopped a British ship in international waters and arrested the skipper; the video footage showed our very own Rod and his yacht - Rod was being manhandled and handcuffed by some very efficient and burly Royal Marines. The story went on to say the man, whose full name was Roderick Newall, was wanted by the Jersey Police for the murder of his mother and father! It came out in court that he and his brother had killed their parents in order to obtain a very large inheritance - you can read more about the case here. Rod served thirteen years in prison for the double murder. What made it even worse was that there were very strong forensic indicators that the carving knife Rod had used to slice our delicious roast beef joint was the very same weapon used to dismember the corpses of his Mum and Dad. I could not make it up. 

I think the local papers do an adequate job of reporting issues and local events, but they sometimes seem to get only half of a story. For example, the story that Sidcup chef and restaurant owner Sayful Alom has won the Curry Chef of the Year award, for his cooking at the Curry Mahal in Station Road, Sidcup. He was presented with the award at a ceremony held at the Lancaster Gate Hotel. This is great news – someone from the area being recognised for excellence in a given field. What the local papers failed to pick up on was that the Curry Mahal was last visited by Environmental Health inspectors on the 19^th of August this year, when it scored only one out of a possible five stars for its’ "Scores on the Doors" food hygiene standards. As was mentioned recently, some local residents have justifiable doubts as to how the “Scores on the Doors” hygiene ratings are carried out. It strikes me that there are three possible reasons for this disparity between the curry chef award, and the poor hygiene score. 1) The Curry Chef award is a con, and it has little or nothing to do with the restaurant or the chefs’ culinary abilities. 2) The “Scores on the Doors” rating is wrong, for whatever reason. 3) The Curry Chef award is genuine, but takes no notice of hygiene conditions, and thus to my mind is invalid as an award. I have no idea which of these possible reasons is true, but I cannot reconcile poor food hygiene with good cookery – the things are interlinked. Your thoughts would be appreciated. The bug in the Blogger template I use persists – if you cannot see a comment box at the foot of this entry, click on any embedded photograph, then click on your browser “back” button – the dialogue box should then appear. It is a kludge, but all I can offer until Google fix the ongoing template fault, which is entirely outside of my control.

Here is the latest "Simon's Cat" video - always a pleasure. Comments for anything covered this week either below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com as you see fit.